hendiadys, a juxtaposition of two ideas which our language would place in a relation of subordination (Fleischer). This hendiadys would, indeed, be scarcely possible if the idea of the married wife were attached to אושׁת; for that such an one has with her husband a “house of companionship, i.e., a common house,” is self-evident. But may it not with equal right be understood of the imperious positive mother-in-law of a widower, a splenetic shrewish aunt, a sickly female neighbour disputing with all the world, and the like? A man must live together with his wife in so far as he does not divorce her; he must then escape from her; but a man may also be constrained by circumstances to live in a house with a quarrelsome mother-in-law, and such an one may, even during the life of his wife, and in spite of her affection, make his life so bitter that he would rather, in order that he might have rest, sit on the pinnacle or ridge of a house-roof. פּנּהּ is the battlement (Zep 1:16) of the roof, the edge of the roof, or its summit; he who sits there does so not without danger, and is exposed to the storm, but that in contrast with the alternative is even to be preferred; he sits alone. Regarding the Chethı̂b מדינים, Kerı̂ מדינים, vid., at Pro 6:14; and cf. the figures of the “continual dropping” for the continual scolding of such a wife, embittering the life of her husband, Pro 19:13.
Verse 10
10 The soul of the godless hath its desire after evil;
His neighbour findeth no mercy in his eyes.
The interchange of perf. and fut. cannot be without intention. Löwenstein renders the former as perf. hypotheticum: if the soul of the wicked desires anything evil...; but the רשׁע wishes evil not merely now and then, but that is in general his nature and tendency. The perf. expresses that which is actually the case: the soul of the wicked has its desire directed (write אוּתה with Munach, after Codd. and old Ed., not with Makkeph) toward evil, and the fut. expresses that which proceeds from this: he who stands near him is not spared. יחן is, as at Isa 26:10, Hoph. of חנן, to incline, viz., oneself, compassionately toward any one, or to bend to him. But in what sense is בּעיניו added? It does not mean, as frequently, e.g., Pro 21:2, according to his judgment, nor, as at Pro 20:8; Pro 6:13 : with his eyes, but is to be understood after the phrase מצא חן בּעיני: his neighbour finds no
